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Tuesday, September 23, 2014

What's the Difference: Journey Map or Lifecycle Map?

Today's post is inspired by a couple of different conversations that happened over the past week or so.

What's the difference between a customer experience lifecycle map and a customer journey map?

I thought it was worthwhile to clarify because the difference is in the details! Literally.

I'll start with the customer experience lifecycle map.

The lifecycle map shows the phases of the customer's relationship with your company. It's high level and is good for understanding the overall relationship the customer has with the organization, from before he's even considered a customer through when he is no longer a customer. It typically includes these stages: Need, Awareness, Consideration, Selection/Purchase, Experience, Loyalty, Advocacy, Engagement, Raving Fans. And, unfortunately, Exit. It's not necessarily linear and often circles back on itself.

This type of map is often handy for your marketing and sales folks to help them understand and identify where prospects or customers are
in the relationship with the company so that they can better target
communications, marketing campaigns, or sales pitches based on wants and needs at each stage. The problem is, it's a 30,000-foot view; it's too high level to be able to help the organization understand the customer experience or to effect change that is meaningful to the customer experience.

Lifecycle maps
have their place and are important to nurturing the overall customer
relationship, but to get to the heart of the matter, to really design a
better customer experience, you must map the customer journey.

What, then, is a customer journey map? In simplest terms, it's a way to walk in
your customer's shoes and chart his course as he interacts with your
organization (channels, departments, touchpoints, products, etc.) while
trying to fulfill some need or do some job within each stage of the lifecycle. It allows you to identify
key moments of truth and to ensure that those moments are executed
delightfully. The map is created from his viewpoint, not yours. It's not
linear either, nor is it static. But it is the backbone of your customer
experience management efforts.

This is where the details come into play, though. The journey map looks at each and every step a customer takes in order to achieve some task, i.e., calling support, ordering a product, etc., with the company. It describes what customers are doing, thinking, and feeling at each step in the journey. Lifecycle maps don't get to this level of detail, and they're not focused on some task the customer is trying to do.

Why do you need a customer journey map? I believe customer journey maps
provide clarity for the entire organization. There are a ton of benefits,
including (to name just a few):

understanding your customer and his interactions with your organization

aligning the organization around a common cause

speaking a universal language (customer)

breaking down organizational silos

getting a single view of the customer

improving the customer experience

If you've done some mapping, take a look at the maps and tell me if you've gotten to the level of detail that you need to get to in order to improve the customer experience. Is it a lifecycle map or a journey map? If you haven't started with personas, described some task the customer is trying to achieve, and validated with customers, you need to go back to the drawing board. Literally.

A map does not just chart - it unlocks and formulates meaning; it forms bridges between here and there, between disparate ideas that we did not know were previously connected. -Reif Larsen, The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet

6 comments:

Excellent points, Annette. There's still a lot of inside-out thinking and content in "Customer Journey Maps". Making the distinction between understanding the company better versus understanding the **customer experience journey**. I've been applauding and critiquing the processes and maps that people are sharing, and just last week wrote a "do this, not that" post about "best practices" that may also be interesting to your readers: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/article/20140921164343-155828-customer-journey-maps-do-this-not-that

Annette,I have a problem with Customer experience lifecycle maps as they are focused on what business wants rather than what the customer needs/wants in their design. Journey mapping is much more useful if done well.

About CX Journey Inc.

CX Journey Inc. is a consulting firm specializing in laying the groundwork required to establish a CX strategy that will drive your culture transformation efforts. Our beliefs are that (1) customer understanding along the customer experience journey is key to developing a strategy that allows both customers and businesses to achieve their desired outcomes, and (2) the employee experience cannot be an afterthought.

Why CX Journey™?

You know the quote, "Success is a journey, not a destination." Well, the customer experience is a journey, too. It's a never-ending journey. Once you've designed the best experience for customers today, their needs change, their expectations evolve, customers change, etc. You'll need to think about the experience today and listen for - and anticipate - what lies ahead. You must always strive to deliver that ultimate customer experience, not only at a single touchpoint but also - especially - along the entire journey. Have you taken the first step?

"Knowing where you're going is the first step to get there." -Ken Blanchard

"It is good to have an end to journey toward, but it is the journey that matters in the end." - Hemingway